The Maiden, musing on the Warrior’s words,Turn’d from the Hall of Glory. Now they reach’dA cavern, at whose mouth a Genius stood,In front a beardless youth, whose smiling eyeBeam’d promise, but behind, withered and old,And all unlovely. Underneath his feetLay records trampled, and the laurel wreathNow rent and faded: in his hand he heldAn hour-glass, […]

She spake, and lo! celestial radiance beam’dAmid the air, such odors wafting nowAs erst came blended with the evening gale,From Eden’s bowers of bliss. An angel formStood by the Maid; his wings, etherial white,Flash’d like the diamond in the noon-tide sun,Dazzling her mortal eye: all else appear’dHer THEODORE.Amazed she saw: the FiendWas fled, and on […]

STRANGER.Old friend! why you seem bent on parish duty,Breaking the highway stones,–and ’tis a taskSomewhat too hard methinks for age like yours. OLD MAN.Why yes! for one with such a weight of yearsUpon his back. I’ve lived here, man and boy,In this same parish, near the age of manFor I am hard upon threescore and […]

JANE.Harry! I’m tired of playing. We’ll draw roundThe fire, and Grandmamma perhaps will tell usOne of her stories. HARRY.Aye–dear Grandmamma!A pretty story! something dismal now;A bloody murder. JANE.Or about a ghost. GRANDMOTHER.Nay, nay, I should but frighten you. You knowThe other night when I was telling youAbout the light in the church-yard, how you trembledBecause […]

It was a little island where he dwelt,Or rather a lone rock, barren and bleak,Short scanty herbage spotting with dark spotsIts gray stone surface. Never marinerApproach’d that rude and uninviting coast,Nor ever fisherman his lonely barkAnchored beside its shore. It was a placeBefitting well a rigid anchoret,Dead to the hopes, and vanities, and joysAnd purposes […]

The subject of this parody was given me by a friend, to whom also I am indebted for some of the stanzas. Respecting the patent coffins herein mentioned, after the manner of Catholic Poets, who confess the actions they attribute to their Saints and Deity to be but fiction, I hereby declare that it is […]

This story is also related by Olaus Magnus, and in the Nuremberg Chronicle, from which the wooden cut is taken. A BALLAD, SHEWING HOW AN OLD WOMAN RODE DOUBLE, AND WHO RODE BEFORE HER. The Raven croak’d as she sate at her meal,And the Old Woman knew what he said,And she grew pale at the […]

No eye beheld when William plungedYoung Edmund in the stream,No human ear but William’s heardYoung Edmund’s drowning scream. Submissive all the vassals own’dThe murderer for their Lord,And he, the rightful heir, possessedThe house of Erlingford. The ancient house of ErlingfordStood midst a fair domain,And Severn’s ample waters nearRoll’d through the fertile plain. And often the […]

Aye Charles! I knew that this would fix thine eye,This woodbine wreathing round the broken porch,Its leaves just withering, yet one autumn flowerStill fresh and fragrant; and yon holly-hockThat thro’ the creeping weeds and nettles tallPeers taller, and uplifts its column’d stemBright with the broad rose-blossoms. I have seenMany a fallen convent reverend in decay,And […]

NATHANIEL.Father! here father! I have found a horse-shoe!Faith it was just in time, for t’other nightI laid two straws across at Margery’s door,And afterwards I fear’d that she might do meA mischief for’t. There was the Miller’s boyWho set his dog at that black cat of hers,I met him upon crutches, and he told me‘Twas […]

WOMAN.Sir for the love of God some small reliefTo a poor woman! TRAVELLER.Whither are you bound?‘Tis a late hour to travel o’er these downs,No house for miles around us, and the wayDreary and wild. The evening wind alreadyMakes one’s teeth chatter, and the very Sun,Setting so pale behind those thin white clouds,Looks cold. ‘Twill be […]

The coffin [1] as I past across the laneCame sudden on my view. It was not here,A sight of every day, as in the streetsOf the great city, and we paus’d and ask’dWho to the grave was going. It was one,A village girl, they told us, who had borneAn eighteen months strange illness, and had […]

O thou who from the mountain’s heightRoll’st down thy clouds with all their weightOf waters to old Niles majestic tide;Or o’er the dark sepulchral plainRecallest thy Palmyra’s ancient pride,Amid whose desolated domesSecure the savage chacal roams,Where from the fragments of the hallow’d faneThe Arabs rear their miserable homes! Hear Genius hear thy children’s cry!Not always […]

High in the air expos’d the Slave is hungTo all the birds of Heaven, their living food!He groans not, tho’ awaked by that fierce SunNew torturers live to drink their parent blood!He groans not, tho’ the gorging Vulture tearThe quivering fibre! hither gaze O yeWho tore this Man from Peace and Liberty!Gaze hither ye who […]

Did then the bold Slave rear at last the SwordOf Vengeance? drench’d he deep its thirsty bladeIn the cold bosom of his tyrant lord?Oh! who shall blame him? thro’ the midnight shadeStill o’er his tortur’d memory rush’d the thoughtOf every past delight; his native grove,Friendship’s best joys, and Liberty and Love,All lost for ever! then […]

‘Tis night; the mercenary tyrants sleepAs undisturb’d as Justice! but no moreThe wretched Slave, as on his native shore,Rests on his reedy couch: he wakes to weep!Tho’ thro’ the toil and anguish of the dayNo tear escap’d him, not one suffering groanBeneath the twisted thong, he weeps aloneIn bitterness; thinking that far awayTho’ the gay […]

Oh he is worn with toil! the big drops runDown his dark cheek; hold–hold thy merciless hand,Pale tyrant! for beneath thy hard commandO’erwearied Nature sinks. The scorching Sun,As pityless as proud Prosperity,Darts on him his full beams; gasping he liesArraigning with his looks the patient skies,While that inhuman trader lifts on highThe mangling scourge. Oh […]

Why dost thou beat thy breast and rend thine hair,And to the deaf sea pour thy frantic cries?Before the gale the laden vessel flies;The Heavens all-favoring smile, the breeze is fair;Hark to the clamors of the exulting crew!Hark how their thunders mock the patient skies!Why dost thou shriek and strain thy red-swoln eyesAs the white […]

Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plainMust the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood?For ever must your Nigers tainted floodRoll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain?Hold your mad hands! what daemon prompts to rearThe arm of Slaughter? on your savage shoreCan hell-sprung Glory claim the feast of gore,With laurels water’d by […]

Glad as the weary traveller tempest-tostTo reach secure at length his native coast,Who wandering long o’er distant lands has sped,The night-blast wildly howling round his head,Known all the woes of want, and felt the stormOf the bleak winter parch his shivering form;The journey o’er and every peril pastBeholds his little cottage-home at last,And as he […]